How does the old saying go?

Ah, yes: “This is funny because it is true”

An old meme, with a beautiful new spin.

I’m lovin’ it!

Laughs in posting on the arXiv 😜

Off topic shout out: why not Chaco sandals for home and/or for going out?

It’s off topic, but OP mentioned having used sandals, so he can maybe consider them a good option

This is so deliciously nerdy

“Publish or perish” is an expression that’s been around since forever and it’s well ingrained into every researcher’s mind so…

What did society expect?

(Not so) Fun story: when a friend of mine was doing her PhD she was trying really hard to reproduce an experiment published on Nature by two Harvard postdocs at the time. She was so frustrated because she couldn’t reproduce it, so she approached one of the authors during a conference and he candidly admitted the experiment was utterly wrong, since after publishing it they realized they made a fatal mistake in interpreting the result which invalidated their claims.

They published the original paper honestly, since they were not aware of the mistake at the time, but they willingly decided not to retract it since a paper in Nature is always a paper in Nature and the citations piling up were too important for their career… How about that for the intellectual honesty that scientists project having as an aura?

Anyhow, this nearly killed my friend’s PhD, but luckily she switched to something related she managed to understand and graduated…

I’ve read it this year for the first time. It’s fantastic. So short and so powerful.

So are there any good news in this respect?

Rewind

I stopped using Windows in 2008 (juggling between a mixture of Linux and Mac OS). One of the reasons, is that at that time I thought Windows was legitimately a mess.

Over time, I thought it got a bit better when seeing it on friends’s computers.

Due to laziness, Windows 11 got installed on my office computer (which I use 1% of my time) and I thought it was honestly pretty good (as in, I never thought about switching back, but it was fine to use it when necessary).

Now that they plug in ads, I’ll certainly want to switch back /s

Ah, wow. So some exams are happening online, even though classes are in person! There goes a combination I had not thought about. It is annoying to still need Respondus though, even if I understand why

Interesting (and annoying). I imagined that most exams went back to the usual pen and paper or laboratory, but there were tests written on laptops and in class long before the pandemic. I had forgotten about those!

Wait, are universities still using Respondus?

I feel for you. It was used a lot during the beginning of the pandemic, but I thought it was dropped by now.

I’ve been a lurker on Reddit for forever (about 15 years) and then the APIcalypse happened and my first and unique post on Reddit was asking for a Tildes invite. I didn’t enjoy Tildes, so now I’m here. We’re so much less that I feel I can’t lurk here too, so now I regularly comment here.

I was scrolling down to see if anyone said this, since it’s been the case for me so far. I have to say lately I’ve seen a raise in unfriendliness (not referring towards me, but in general), but I suppose it’s inevitable.

I’m still really happy with how people interact with me and with each other, and I haven’t felt that on Reddit for a while (am referring to both pre APIcalypse and after, though I now visit Reddit rarely)

Condiment King

F**k this is so bad!

I’ve had the pleasure (?) To eat KFC in the US and in Europe. Besides the fact that it was junk food either way, the European version was just so much better.

I can believe that in its distant origins, KFC was actually tasty, but right now I’d sooner enjoy being punched in the stomach than eating there (a similar statement is true by replacing KFC with McDonald’s or Burger King or several other fast food chains, though for only these three I’ve tried both US and EU versions of these products)

Well, I’m sure you can buy delicious fried chicken elsewhere at a local joint (those people won’t block your ads)!

This was well written and makes me miss Groklaw once more